5 Tricks and toys to make bathtime fun for kids

Bring the fun back to bath time with a few fun, easy, interesting ideas. Your kids will be begging for a bath.

But mom! I don’t want to take a bath! Sound familiar? That can become a familiar refrain in the preschool years and beyond. Sometime between toddlerhood and the preschool years, kids can lose interest in baths … wanting more playtime instead. So, what can you do to get them in the water (and get clean!)? Make bathtime fun again!

Really, it’s simple. With a few fun tools and tricks, your kids will be begging for a long bathtime (and willingly getting out too!).

Fun with letters

When you see the foam bathtub letters, you might wonder how much fun they can really be … but with a little effort, foam letters can mean big bath time fun.

Truly – those foam letters aren’t just a fun thing for kids to stick on the walls of the tub. You can use them for a bit of sneaky learning right in the bathtub (score! double duty toys rock). “When [my son] was a toddler, we would play word games with the thin letters that would adhere to the bathtub. Just short 2 – 4 letter words. I put up ‘at’. Then we added the front letters like ‘c’, ‘b’, and ‘s’. I think what he loved about it was the words would rhyme. We also made up stories like ” The silly cat sat with the bat.” Cracked him up all the time,” says dad David Veal, whose son is now 14.

Get artsy

Art projects are a lot of fun and kids absolutely adore them. But for moms, the idea of art projects can totally bring on the anxiety. They really can get a little messy, can’t they? The goodnews? Both you and your kids can be happy. Forget the mess of art projects by taking the art into the tub.

How? You can give your kids watercolors to paint all over the bath walls (it’ll wash right off!). Or pick up a soap-based product designed for the tub. The Village Company makes Sesame Street Finger Paints, which come in three colors: red, blue and yellow. Let the kids have fun painting and playing … and then just wash it away when you are all done.

Sculpt away

Do you have a budding sculptor on your hands? Let them practice in the tub with shaving cream! “My kids–under supervision, so they didn’t eat it–used shaving cream which we squeezed out on to the tub edge and they ‘sculpted’ with toy flatware on toy dishes,” says mom Linda Carlson.

Don’t forget the bubbles!

Sure, bubble bath is fun, but that’s not the only kind of bubbles that can make bathtime more fun. While your kids play in the tub, blow a few bubbles with some bubble solution and a wand and let him have an awesome time catching them. Also check out the Bubble Bath from California Baby, which is designed for use in the bath. With different formulas and scents (the Cold and Flu formula is fab for opening airways!), it’s practically a guarantee for a good time.

Cozy up

Making the bath itself fun is one thing … but what about when it’s time to get out of the tub? That can be tough. But there is one fabulous way to make even getting out of the tub fun – with a cute hooded towel, like the Zoocchini Safari Line of towels. The adorable, plush towels come in zebra, lion and elephant styles. Measuring 20″ x 50″, they are made from 100 percent cotton.